Rebecca: Twisted Fairy-Tale

Nina McConigley talks to Heather about her new novel How to Commit a Post-Colonial Murder (Pantheon, 2026) and how her feelings have changed about Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1941). Rebecca is an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel, which is itself a reworking of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, from 1847. And we only just realized that in this interview! Nina McConigley's short story collection, Cowboys and East Indians, won the 2014 PEN/Open Book Award and the High Plains Book Award. She was also a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Creative Writing Fellowship. She teaches at Colorado State University.